The End of All Things
by Amplesound
Summary: Set against the backdrop of the aftermath of the sinking of the Titanic (of of of), she, an unnamed steerage passenger has to accept the tragedy and the lost opportunity. Giving Lightoller a little more heart and soul with a character I thought he might be interested in. An idea I dared to entertain. This has been up before, but mistakes must be fixed. So...again. Here :)


**The End of All Things**

Eh…ok, so I have a mini mini crush on Lightoller but pay no heed to such nonsense for this is merely a one shot idea that I came up and swept away with. This sort of character – the nameless female – has been a recurring factor in many of my ideas so it's interesting seeing her coming to life once more.

So here she lay; sweet and silent – adrift in a dreamless sleep. The tears would come, he knew, for they could not be **so** far off as to not. She was a woman, no matter the amount of strength, courage, fortitude or plane stubbornness she may have had; her heart, like us all, breaks on a whim and of its own accord thus leaving the earth to fall from our feet as do our tears. Lightoller knew her tears would come.

She was tucked away in a bed he made for her, in the crews quarters – one which would have been his but he chose her over himself this time. Something he should have done in the sinking but she wasn't there for him to do so. He was preoccupied with trying to flip an overturned boat back over, board it with the people who had managed to board it too and navigate them all away from the chaos. From a distance he'd seen the literal rise and fall of the Titanic. The stern rising slowly to a straight stand up and then it's equally as slow descent into the depths of the sea. He had seen the death of Titanic and what a spectacular death it was – it wasn't just the ship that went down – it was the entire steam train of western civilisation stopped dead in its tracks. The panic and screams of so many people, many of which he was very much aware, were stuck inside the ship itself: The Captain…Mr Andrews…Mr Andrews. Yes, he had been the man to point out Mr Lightoller's folly. He was not putting enough people in the boats but by the time that had been pointed out to him, he had already set loose two.

And Murdoch, Officer William Murdoch. Lightoller and Murdoch had not always seen eye to eye but he had respected the man to the highest height for he was a brave man; strong and true. He stood just as much of a chance of falling victim to the onslaught of panic that swept over the Titanic as any of the other officers – it was just unfortunate that it was he who did. He shot a man who had been attempting to pass him against Murdoch's threats and that lead to the shot man falling down and creating a gap which people were shoved from and regrettably further lead to the accidental death of a third class Irishman who was shoved forward by force. As a result, Murdoch chose his own price and paid it. Lightoller had learned all about this when Lowe had returned from his hunt for survivors. In a sort of twisted way, Lightoller was somehow taken with Murdoch's suicide, owed to the fact that Murdoch regretted his fumble with his entire being, he took his life on the spot where as Lightoller was fully prepared to "shoot 'them' all like dogs" if they did not keep order and not only that, he was fully prepared and able to move on from that sort of situation should it have occurred. But it didn't and he was glad of it, for a day or so later, it would not have sat well with him.

Officer Lowe, on the other hand, was a different sort of hero – a rare breed of Officer who was young and yet had a fully grounded head on his shoulders. He had a lot to learn yet but Lightoller reckoned that due to the proceedings of the night before, the lad would have learned quite a lot in a very short space of time and he was hero for it, no less. Lowe was the only officer to go back – the only one who sought to rectify Lightoller's second hand mistake and he had given Lowe a hand for the shaking and another for the squeezing of his shoulder in thanks.

But that was over now. Those 1500 people would find peace somewhere other than the sea. Yes, their bodies would rot, decay and sink below the surface and become ghosts – shadows that haunted the Northern Atlantic but that no longer mattered. It was not the body that needed to be remembered. What needed remembering was the hopes, dreams and potential of those people as well as the thing that crushed them.

Lightoller ran a hand over her sleeping form, feeling the curve of her body; every contour and every crevice taking note of how very much alive her skin was, cold but far from dead. He had met her a few days before their departure but she had not told him that she would be boarding the same doomed ship as he but when he saw her again, his heart leapt and he froze. The anticipation of meeting her once more exciting him to no end – he had digressed to the feelings of a foolish, love sick boy and he knew then that his fate had been determined. Now here she was one of the few third class passengers that survived – thanks to Lowe but it would be a lie to say he was not surprised. He had tried to get her to board a boat, tried so hard several times but with each chance he gave her, she disappeared to find friends, to give hope, to calm, to hold, to save. By the seventh try, it was over for the eighth time, she never showed and the boat had flipped anyway and it was impossible to focus on one person. Watching the ship sink with her on it tore him apart and yet here she was in his bed for the time being, free from the ties of loss that waited outside the door of her resting mind, waiting to tie her up in grief the moment she woke. She had been on her way back home with 12 years' worth of trying to do that straggling behind her. The Carpathia…was going back to Southampton. She had lost her chance again.

What was more was that she had friends on the Titanic that were trying to do the same but they didn't make it onto the Carpathia either. Lightoller sighed - a heavy sigh. That was going to ruin her for a good few weeks. This was going to be tougher than it would have been had he chosen not to love someone on a doomed voyage to America but he did. Whether or not she chose him was yet to be determined but he had chosen her. He had chosen her the moment she decided against his wishes, to not board the first lifeboat he offered to her. Odd though it was, but it was the moment that summed up all of what she was and therefore all of what he loved.

What could he do now? Nothing but be there when she woke.

A few minutes later, she stirred, her eyes beginning to flutter as sleep wore off. His hand was still on her waste and so he travelled back up her body to her face where he gently wiped away a stray hair that had taken residence on her cheek.

"You're still here," she muttered through closed eyes. He smiled a solemn, wry smile,

"There's nowhere else for me to be."

She let her eyes flutter open then and with a heave, she rose from her resting position and gazed straight ahead of her,

"The Carpathia, yes?"

"Yes,"

So the questioning began. It would be quick and conclusive.

"How many people in the water?"

"We counted 1500 but saved 6,"

"6…"

He could feel the disbelief in her voice, feel it mixed with anger and inconsolable sorrow. For a number such as 1500, 6 was a failure of a numeral. He had not gone back.

"Officer Lowe took a life boat back for the survivors but… he was too late,"

But he, himself, Lightoller, had not gone back.

"But he went back," came her reply, one which wounded him deeply – more out of his own self-pity rather than her attacking him.

She took a short sharp breath and swung her legs over the edge of the bed and bent to put her shoes on. She proceeded out of the room, up to the deck and towards the stern of their new vessel. He followed her of course, stopping centimetres away from her, directly behind her shivering frame.

"6, you say. And the Carpathia is going…" and so here it was.

"Back to Southampton,"

She went silent. The final piece of information she dreaded. She didn't ask about her friends and he suspected that deep in her soul – and going by the proceedings of the lifeboat organisation – she already knew the answer. She gazed out over the open water, the vast expanse of icy, deathly cold water. She did so as if looking for the lost they were forced to leave behind or the ice-berg simply to try and understand how such a travesty occurred or perhaps she was trying to see at least a glimpse of home just so that she could be sure that it truly did exist.

All at once, her shoulders dropped and she let out a sob of such dire disappointment that Lightoller could barely stand it. The tears had come. He took the final step, closing the gap between their bodies so that he might feel her and she him, a comfort of sorts – the best he could offer, to let her know he was there even if America wasn't. He put her arms on either side of her; one around her waist to hold her close and the other on the stern rail to steady himself. Enveloping her completely was truly all he could do. Resting his head on her shoulder, he tried to be the man he needed to be as she fell apart – broke into a thousand, thousand pieces in his arms. If he were a better man, he might have let her be but he wasn't. He was the man who was holding her now and he could not walk away from that. He was shattered too only she had lost more than he.

But here they were…and let it be.


End file.
